The Warburton appointment appears to have been accepted by many commentators without much critical analysis. I appreciate that he's a great player, but there are a number of key points against him:-

(i) He got himself sent off in the biggest game of his career to date and thereby cost his country a place in a RWC final;(ii) He has played almost no competitive knock-out rugby at European or Pro12 level (he didn't play in the Leinster game in 2012 and didn't start any of the knock-out games when Cardiff won the Amlin in 2010); and(iii) He's still only 24 and hasn't experienced a Lions tour previously.

I'm not doubting that he has put in some stellar performances for Wales in big games, particularly in the group stages of the 2011 RWC and during the past two 6 Nations campaigns. He definitely deserves to tour and probably to start at openside in the Test matches. However, I don't think there is sufficient evidence to show that he has the requisite temperament or experience to be chosen as captain.

Last edited by tackle-bag on April 30th, 2013, 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i) he dealt with admirably unlike his management team (and in particular his defence coach who exploded in an embarrassing way) and while hysteria was being whipped up around himii) true butiii) he has captained his national side and is older than when i) happened. You don't have experience until you do.

It's not something that bothers me or I suspect most people.

Datta: what have we given?My friend, blood shaking my heartThe awful daring of a moment's surrenderWhich an age of prudence can never retract What the thunder said to Brian Lenihan

fourthirtythree wrote:i) he dealt with admirably unlike his management team (and in particular his defence coach who exploded in an embarrassing way) and while hysteria was being whipped up around himii) true butiii) he has captained his national side and is older than when i) happened. You don't have experience until you do.

It's not something that bothers me or I suspect most people.

He also captained his National Side on what was effectively a Tour during the RWC 2011 in NZ. And received plenty of plaudits for the manner in which he conducted himself, both on and off the pitch and before and after the famous/notorious sending off.

I just don't think he is (or should be) a guaranteed Test starter given his 2013 form. Other than that I think he ticks all the captaincy boxes.

Showbiz wrote:Seems Dylan Hartley could be out of the tour after being sent off in the PL final for abusing the referee. Couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. Good news for the Lions

What goes through Mallinders head to award that duff man the captaincy?

I don't know. Sometimes if you make your most penalty-prone player the captain [if he's already a leader in the team that is, not if he's just some penno-machine who like Neil Best] it means he stays on the pitch longer because he has built a rapport with the referee. That's a pretty lame idea/suggestion though.

It's not as though Mallinder doesn't have another option: Tom Wood is going to captain England on tour and is both a quality player and a good skin. You'd think that he'd get the nod next season after this latest incident. Hartley's not even that good a player in the first place, never mind being a good captain. He lost his test place in RWC11 to Tommo, and he's lost it again this season to Tom Youngs. He can't make the English team and he certainly shouldn't have made the Lions squad. My respect for Rowntree [who I quite like, from what I've seen of him] really dropped with the inclusion of Hartley, Stevens and Vunipola in the Lions front row corps. Talk about home town decisions!

Back to Hartley: he's now got bans for gouging, biting, punching and abusing the ref. What's left for his dance card?

According to Hartley he did not intend to call the ref a f%~king cheat.

It just the difference in the application of the rules, sometimes what you intend to do is not what you actually do. For example I did not intend to stoke to coals of POCs intent in the Munster Leinster game, merely highlight our leagues failure to impliment the rules for right or wrong?

If for example BOD or Bowe did the same thing as DH last Saturday, does anybody think they would be missing the plane?And pocs is not the only historic example one could quote.

Anyways shame on DH, but what was he selected for in the first place?And fair play to the English crowd, sometimes rugby should come first!

Oh and I don't feel too sorry for him, sure Sky sports will fly him out and pay him double just to sit in camera shot and look all Poe faced when a line out goes wrong, as if he would 1) be selected 2) do any better!

Not sure about his merits in "missing" a previous lions tour, if not banned or injured would he have been selected? No good hookers knocking about then?

olaf the fat wrote:Oh and I don't feel too sorry for him, sure Sky sports will fly him out and pay him double just to sit in camera shot and look all Poe faced when a line out goes wrong, as if he would 1) be selected 2) do any better!

Not sure about his merits in "missing" a previous lions tour, if not banned or injured would he have been selected? No good hookers knocking about then?

Not even sure if it's true. He hadn't started a single test match for England when the Lions squad was announced in 2009, and he was playing for England in Argentina in June 2009, i.e. during the Lions tour [source: http://www.espn.co.uk/statsguru/rugby/p ... view=match ]. So he wasn't called up when Flannery got injured, and he wasn't banned, as far as I can tell.